PUTRAJAYA, 19 Jan 2009: A total of 3,211 dengue fever cases with eight deaths have been reported for the14 – 17 Jan period, a 112% increase from the 1,514 cases with four deaths over the corresponding period last year.

Director-General of Health, Tan Sri Dr Ismail Merican said despite the 3.4% drop in the second week, the number of cases reported remained high.

“Majority or 63% of the cases were in Selangor and Kuala Lumpur while there was an increase in Penang, Johor, Sarawak and Kedah,” he told reporters here today.

For Chikungunya fever, 364 cases were reported over the same period with majority in Selangor, Kelantan, Perak, Johor, Kedah, Pahang and Penang.

Ismail contributed the rise in cases to an increase in aedes breeding brought by the rainy spell and lack of clean-up activities to prevent and control the spread of dengue.

He said the Health Ministry had spent RM1.7 million on a campaign to stop the breeding of aedes mosquitoes via the print and electronic media two weeks ago by urging the public to destroy aedes breeding grounds once a week.

It had also launched phase two of the Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPG) where doctors at government and private hospitals were asked to detect dengue early to reduce death.

The public should clean their environment using the Communication For Behavioural Impact (Combi) programme that had been proven to reduce dengue by 84%.

There are 11,892 Combi volunteers in 598 localities nationwide.

Ismail said death because of dengue could be reduced if the patients were given prompt treatment.

He attributed this to the low dengue awareness of only 34% among patients, three days after infection. — Bernama